Effin’.
Posted by pittgirl on 25 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: The Damn Pigeons
I’m sick today with the fever and the chills and the headache and the sore throat and I blame it all on Tina Fey for bringing it with her from Texas. So I’m not just regular sick. I’m TEXAS sick. It’s bigger. It’s badder. Its accent is a bit annoying and hard to understand.
So forgive me if my snark/wit doesn’t have as much jalapeño sauce on it today as it should.
Can we talk pigeons and PETA and how much they both bug me?
LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - Wimbledon came under fire from animal activists on Tuesday for using marksmen to shoot down dive-bombing pigeons.
The tournament employs two hawks to scare away pigeons who had become a pest swooping down on Centre Court and distracting players in the middle of tense matches.
But the hawks failed to keep the pigeons away from the players’ lawn and the open-air media restaurant so marksmen were called in.
“The hawks are our first line of deterrent, and by and large they do the job,” Wimbledon spokesman Johnny Perkins said.
“But unfortunately there were one or two areas where the hawks didn’t deter the pigeons, so it was deemed necessary to take a harder approach,” he explained.
The marksmen were summoned by Wimbledon as pigeon droppings on the restaurant tables were thought to be a health hazard.
The decision to call in the marksmen was condemned as “cruel and illegal behaviour” by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) which complained to the tournament organisers and the police.
“Since the use of marksmen to kill pigeons appears to have been carried out as a first, rather than a last resort, and not out of a concern for public health, but rather because the animals were deemed inconvenient by players, you appear to be in clear violation of the law,” PETA vice-president Bruce Friedrich said.
1. First, killing pigeons is not “cruel and illegal behaviour” when the pigeons are dive-bombing tennis players and pooping on dining tables. Getting rid of them is necessary and getting to kill them is just icing on the cake, really.
2. If I’m making this up, may the hand of God once again come down and bitch-slap me with Ebola on top of Texas Death that I’m currently suffering through, yesterday, the Family of PittGirl and all 6,230 children spent the afternoon at the Zoo where I’m pretty sure the gorilla mooned me on purpose. We headed to the eating area to get some ice cream and as I was feeding one of the children with a spoon, I felt a drop on my lap and looked down to see a white splotch. A splotch I assumed was ice cream falling from the spoon. So I swiped it away with my finger.
And then I realized ice cream isn’t usually this warm, this gooey, or this foul smelling. Hey. This isn’t ice cream. This is bird poop!
Even after I cleaned my hand with 42 baby wipes, I could still FEEL the poison on my finger. I might burn the skirt I was wearing. 6,230 people sitting around me and I’m the one that gets hit.
So Mr. PETA Friedrich, excuse me when I say that I don’t really care if they’re taking the birds out with bird shot, or with poison darts through the head, or if they’re having well-to-do British gentlemen in dress whites running out onto the courts and ripping their mothereffin’ heads off with extreme effin’ prejudice.
They’re getting what they deserve. And I only wish I could be there to witness it in person.
But I’m stuck here praying for the sweet release of death. And hoping that when it comes, there are no pigeons in heaven.
Because if there are, I am so screwed.
(h/t Honda Driver, Bill, JCL, Jen, Mark, Shannon, Derek, Steve, Christy, Arika, Different Steve, Kevin, Ruth Ann and Nolan. Hope I didn’t miss anyone!)
24 Comments »
on 25 Jun 2008 at 9:50 am 1.unsatisfied said …
JCL….unsatisfied…it’s all the same to me, PG! ;-P
as for PETA — this is yet another reason why I dislike them. evidently, no one in that organization has been dive bombed/shat upon by one of these useless winged rats.
btw — has anyone from PETA come out and said anything about the dead bear yet? (enter eye roll here)
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:06 am 2.Ex-Pat Pittsburgh Girl said …
Feel better PittGirl. Nothing worse than a summer cold/flu.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:15 am 3.maxtalbot said …
PittGirl, I’ve got the same insidious ailment. And I wasn’t even hanging about with Tina Fey and her Texas microbes. Bah. Feel better.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:15 am 4.JamieO said …
Hey! I mentioned the pigeon story at the end of my rip on the bear story!
Anyway, hope you feel better.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:32 am 5.ark said …
PittGirl, I thought of you yesterday while I was sitting out in Mellon Square downtown. I watched some doof in a beater hand-feed pigeons. I mean hand-feed….he let them perch on his arm and hand while he fed them with the other hand and the rest of the dirty flock swarmed around him. It went on for almost my entire lunch hour. It was absolutely disgusting. Who coddles city rats??
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:44 am 6.Amazon woman said …
Be happy you just got mooned. I saw a monkey beating off in the monkey house. A monkey spanking the monkey. Not making this up, pinky swear!
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:46 am 7.chrys said …
Get Well Soon!!
For the record.. I hate pigeons.. in fact I hate birds. yuk! LOL!
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:48 am 8.julietc said …
Hey, can we get Burgh Baby on the blogroll?/
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:53 am 9.Sparky said …
Amazon Woman…I had the same thing happen..must be the same randy monkey. I turned to look right at the peak time (if you know what I mean)… I was with my grandma…it was a little bit Awkward City.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:53 am 10.PittGirl said …
What. She’s not on there? That will be fixed.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 12:20 pm 11.DeutschtownFrau said …
Chrys — Please don’t hate all birds, just pigeons and any other feathered spawn of Satan we PG fans helpfully identify on this blog. (Such as baby-bird-eating bluejays. I watched one ripping apart another bird’s nestling once while the mother bird shrieked and cried. It was terrible.)
Example of adorable bird behavior: After not filling my goldfinch feeder all winter, I resumed doing so a couple of weeks ago. Hadn’t seen any goldfinches in months (and not just because they turn from yellow to dull brown during the winter). It took about three days for word to spread through the bird kingdom that the cool upside-down feeder was up and running in Deutschtown and now it’s occupied by as many as four neon-colored birds at all times. And they apparently never poop.
I waste a lot of time watching those birds… but pigeons suck.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 12:43 pm 12.Bulldog said …
feel better soon PG.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 1:31 pm 13.MiamiShyner said …
I hope this works for you and makes your day a little brighter. Nothing like Troy in a pool to make a girl smile. http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d808feae0
on 25 Jun 2008 at 1:47 pm 14.Evil Twin said …
Thank you MiamiShyner. That video of Troy made my day!
on 25 Jun 2008 at 1:49 pm 15.retiredguy said …
So, do your nieces and nephews now call you “Aunt Poopyfinger”?
on 25 Jun 2008 at 2:10 pm 16.osuisnumber1 said …
Pigeons do suck. I work and live in Baltimore now and one of my coworkers is currently investigating Pigeon birth control so that we can get rid of the pigeons in one of our public spaces.
Also, did you see that one of the Cathedral of Learning falcons died? http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08177/892284-53.stm?cmpid=MOSTEMAILEDBOX
And, on another note, I know you are down on the Pirates now but you had to love that awesome win last night…
on 25 Jun 2008 at 2:29 pm 17.Dan (Not Onarato) said …
Feel better PG
on 25 Jun 2008 at 4:29 pm 18.Ralph said …
Hmm., did they feed them to the homeless after they shot them?
on 25 Jun 2008 at 6:09 pm 19.Tony said …
Feel better soon, PG… your legions are wishing you the best.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 7:06 pm 20.PAGirlinFL said …
osuisnumber1 - the folks in St. Paul, MN are preparing for the RNC with pigeon birth control….
http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/20551544.html?location_refer=urlTrackSectionName
on 25 Jun 2008 at 8:01 pm 21.Different Brian said …
From the article: “Wimbledon came under fire from animal activists [...]”
You know what else came under fire? The damn pigeons! Hahahahahaha!
on 25 Jun 2008 at 9:51 pm 22.Jen said …
eeeeeew! Pigeon poop on your FINGER? *gag*
Sorry to hear you’re sick… my baby has it too. What is up with Summer Colds?? Should be illegal. I blame the pigeons.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:11 pm 23.Burgh Baby said …
Now I’m digging through photos just in case, just maybe, you were at the Zoo while we were at the Zoo. Not that I’ll know if I see you, but I might notice Tina Fey. Sadly, a hot chick freakin’ out about bird poop wouldn’t have gotten my attention. It happens too much in that food court. Stupid birds.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:38 pm 24.aunt penny said …
Another pigeon story.
Prisoners at a jail got in trouble for growing pigeons and training them to go in and out with little backpacks…..wish I knew where, caught the tailend on the news…
Get well soon, my cubie mate has the same disease plus three kiddos 5 and under…